The invention relates to outdoor and indoor illuminated signs, particularly those useful in smaller businesses and individual residences to identify addresses.
A number of inventions teach apparatus and methods for providing an illuminated display for the letters and numerals of identifications of addresses and business identities. Most of this prior art, however, concerns articles which are specifically prepared for a single display and cannot be readily changed to make a different display.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,611,265, issued to Davis (9/9/86) teaches a lighted address display in which the light from an incandescent bulb is reflected into a translucent wall upon which address indicia appear. The invention teaches the use of opaque, stick-on numerals to form the address figures.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,009,535, issued to Stock (3/1/77) teaches the illumination of a plastic template in which the desired figures are cut out. By illuminating one side of the plastic template light will pass through the cutouts and be visible in the shape of the desired figures on the other. Once such a template is cutout the only way to change the display would be to create a new template.
What is not available in the present art is a means of providing an attractive illuminated sign which is capable of wide interchangeability of characters and designs and capable of outdoor display. The presently available efforts at such an objective typically result in large, inefficient displays which are capable of accomodating only a relative few styles, sizes and designs of figures.